QotW: What’s the worst thing you’ve spilled in your JNC?

Interiors. In many cases, the interior plays second (or third) fiddle to a car’s performance or exterior panache. Further still, we tend to neglect the rotting carpet or always-covered-in-grime trunk floor. But boy oh boy, a clean interior is a sight to behold, and keeping it in good nick is easier said than done.

In my younger years, I thought I could balance, in traffic, a tall chocolate milkshake on the flat part of the transmission hump of my near-spotless 914 interior (Cup holders? What cup holders?). One good brake check sent the shake on a one-way trip to spillville.

The winner this week wasn’t a response to a the actual question, but a response to a response. When Brignola vowed to finally start a Hot Wheels collection in 2018, Rotsun77 chimed in with some sage advice:

Careful what you wish for Brignola! The staff at JNC, through no fault of their own, was so kind as to rekindle my childhood flame of hotwheels cars. Which lead to filling more shelf space than I’d like to admit with miniature die-cast replicas of all my favorite classics.

Which in itself isn’t anything too terribly bad, but my wife never ceases to giggle every time I demand to go look at the toy aisle while grocery shopping so I can forage for the latest wide-bodied Z car. The occasional ear piercing whine from a toothless bratty kid tends to draw a “WAIT YOUR TURN!” response, making me realize the significant age gap doesn’t necessarily equate to advanced maturity, making me feel more like a Billy Bob Thornton character in a Bad Santa movie than a civilized human being… Take my advice and check Ebay or Amazon!

All that aside my resolution would probably be to put the small fortune of parts I’ve amassed to good use and finally stop procrastinating with my current project. As soon as the sub arctic temperatures no longer threaten to flash freeze any exposed digits before I even have a chance to turn a bolt.

Omedetou! Your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop.

Many years ago now I was driving my ’75 Mitsubishi Galant Hardtop with my then GF Up front and the dog in in the back.
Pupper evidently wasn’t a fan of loud exhausts, leaf springs and the crumbed chicken she’d been fed the night before and decided a bit of reupholstery was in order and horked on the back seat.

Worse still was the saggy seat frame lead to a gap between the seat base and backrest which meant that the majority of the protein spill ended up UNDER the seat leading to the whole lot having to be removed from the car in order to clean it up.

Additionally, years later the same dog yodelled in my then new Toyota 86 leading to the discovery that the centre console is in fact water tight.
Pass on my thanks to the design team next time you meet them, would you?

Once I had green paint in several 2,5 liter cans in my Legacy. Of course, in a sharp corner they hit one another and one broke open and fell on its side. Though the car itself is green metallic, it was no joy. I now always try to put tins in a plastic box. But first you have to learn your lesson, that’s life.

It may sound weird, but my case of spilling involves candy. You may think: not a big deal to spill anything solid, however it actually turend out to be a big deal.

My son really is fond of Mentos, so I always have a roll with me. So when I was enjoying driving my JNC to a meeting all by myself, I decided to eat some on my way. Since I was driving while getting one Mentos out, I accidentally dropped one (citrus flavor) and it slipped between my seat and the transmission tunnel. After arrival I completely forgot about the slipped Mentos and after the meeting I simply parked the car in my garage.

Fast forward a few months, when I decided to swap my bone stock seats for some Celica Supra Mk2 seats, and to my horror found some yellowish blob glued to the carpet. I tried to remove it as much as I could using a knife without damaging the carpet, but there is still a residue left. I didn’t taste it in MCM-Moog-style, but it smelled like Mentos. My guess is that Mentos, if left exposed over a long time, extracts moisture from the air (The Netherlands is a moderately humid climate) and slowly melts and fuses with its environment. Probably I would be able to remove it entirely after soaking in water (or diet Coke 😛 ) for some time, but since it’s between the seat and the transmission tunnel it’s not worth the effort.

The conclusion is that, whatever you drop, always pick it up and don’t allow any candy to fuse with your JNC!

Dried dog food (kibble). A bag split and about 9 months later I noticed some had grown mould and become one with the carpet.
As a true gearhead I decided the best course of action was to spray it with brake cleaner, surely that will kill the mould.
This was 6 months ago and until reading this post I forgot about it, can get a current pic in the morning if you dare, lol

A small bottle of black touch up paint on my driver’s seat of my 84 Celica. Beige seat. I didn’t really spill it, it was sitting on the seat during the winter while my car was in storage, and froze solid, expanding the liquid, popping the top off the container. So when spring rolled around and I dug the car out I had a surprise slick of cured black paint on my good seat. Its actually still there, not sure how to get it out. Replace the upholstery I would imagine. Winter and freezing liquids are a bad mix. I bring all my liquids into the house for winter now! Lesson learned…

I actually didn’t do it. The police did. My 240Z got stolen. They found it across the state. When I went to the impound yard, I found the interior covered in black fingerprint powder. Despite years of cleaning, it never really came out completely. Disgusting stuff that finds its way to all the little cracks and seams.

I purchased my ’71 240-Z at the age of 16 over 44 years ago. As a senior in high school I thought it would real cool to bring one of my anatomy class projects home for a holloween prank .Inside of a large gallon glass container was a cow brain a lot’s and lots of Formaldehyde. Afer class i took the jar to the student parking to place in my car.

Although I believed I had secured the jar in the passenger seat very well with a seatbelt, when I had to brake very hard to avoid a vehicle that had pulled out in front of me, needless to say the jar and all contents slammed first against the dash, fell to the footwell area, and finally into a zillion pieces of glass,brain and soaked the cockpit area with formaldehyde.

It seemed to take years to clean up, I ended up replacing all the carpet and to this day I usually have a container in the vehicle to secure any items in the car. Another lesson learned.

My daughter had a concussion after falling out of her bed. I didn’t believed her when she said that she felt queasy and ignored the warnings of my wife. Oh boy, I believed her after my little daughter threw up on the leather seats of my Mazda RX-8 – twice.
But as a father you always forgive your daughter. Last year she was my co-driver at a rotary car meeting rallye and we finished first.

Not in my car, but a tow buddy of mine was sent to retrieve a Toyota Cressida Wagon at a surf spot. It had been stripped after getting it’s “Orange Police Tag” and he found it devoid of it’s 4 wheels, all the doors, the seats, and bits and bobs here and there. Pretty much an empty shell.

Anyway, as he was about to affix the first temporary doughnut tires to haul it onto the flatbed, he noticed several used condoms scattered about, and he took a look into the back cargo area.

His best description of what he smelled was “A mix of fish oil and salt water that had been marinating in the hot sun. Unrefrigerated.” Unfortunately, if I tell you what he saw, i’d probably get banned from the site for describing graphic images.

Back in the ’70s, in my first car, a Daruma Celica, I liked to order Jack in the Box tacos in the drive-thru, late at night. Then hang around in the parking lot with the gang, eating, drinking, and making noise.

I always ordered three of them, but one night I found only two in the bag. Went back for the third one, the guy insisted he gave me three, but got me another, because, why not? Who cares?

About three weeks later, I found that third taco, under the car seat. It had been smelling a bit funky in there, but I worked at the time as a butcher, so strange smells in that car were nothing new. The taco had partially mummified and partially rotted. Neither the car, nor my appetite for Jack in the Box tacos, were quite the same after that.

A MG battery tipped over that was on the floor of my 1991 Mazda B2600i. Ruined the original factory floor mat, and ruined the factory carpeting. The only replacement carpet that is available that is molded doesn’t fit or look quite right. But my insurance did pay most of the cost. I am still sad every time I drive my truck.

I spilled a can of Coca Cola in my FB RX-7. Coke itself isn’t a bad thing, but the timing could not have been worse. I was taking part in a track day in Mondello Park in Ireland and little did I know my passenger on the drive over left a can in the passenger footwell. There was also a screwdriver in the footwell. Second lap, third corner, the well shaken can and the screwdriver got a little intimate. The screwdriver pierced a hole in the side of the can, causing it spray all over the cabin, windscreen and of course my face. Sticky.